


ashes to ashes

by imagymnasia



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, I'm so sorry for this, Rated T for language, Specific Neutral Route spoilers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-04-25 06:33:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4950274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagymnasia/pseuds/imagymnasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>*meanwhile...<br/>*i've been knocking on the door to the RUINS...<br/>*but that woman hasn't been answering me...<br/>*maybe she's not feeling well?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [simplycarryon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplycarryon/gifts).



> SERIOUS SPOILER WARNING. This will spoil anything but a true pacifist ending. You've been warned.  
> Also? Apologies for the heavy-handed angst. Subtlety is something at which I am terrible.
> 
> For Kay, because she taunted me into writing it. I hope you suffer the vitriol of a thousand frozen suns too, you butt.

"Knock knock." 

_Who's there?_

"Doris."

_Doris who?_

"Doris locked, that's why I'm knocking."

You can't help it: you chuckle. The sound is too loud in the empty silence. No answer today, just as there was no answer yesterday, or the day before that, or the day before _that._ If your knuckles could bleed, they would have long ago. Instead, the bones in your hands are worn and misshapen from the abuse. It hurts,  _gods above_ does it hurt, but you persist. Even knowing what you might find beyond the door, you keep coming back here. Even knowing there won't ever be an answer. You're not the kind of guy to cling to false hope, yet some part of you won't let go.

And you know you'll be back tomorrow.

* * *

 

The snow seems colder today, but you push that thought to the back of your mind. Instead you try to remember her favorite jokes, hoping the sound of your voice and the familiarity of an oldie-but-goody might lull her spirit out of hiding. You'd settle for anything-- a sigh, a rustle of movement, any sign she still exists beyond the door. She could even tell you to go away, _beg_ you to leave her alone and never come back; that would hurt less than not knowing. It would hurt less than what you tell yourself you can't possibly know for sure.

You shove that thought away and force your smile firmly back in place.

"So Papyrus crushed himself under a pile of books yesterday," you tell the door. "Pretty funny, actually. Wish you could've seen it. And really, he only had his shelf to blame."

When the silence stretches longer than you're comfortable with, you try another.

"Hey, you want to hear a pizza joke?" you ask. You give it a second, maybe two, then shrug. "Never mind, it’s pretty cheesy." 

Nothing. Your words, muffled by the snow, sound weak and hollow in your ears. Suddenly, you hate it-- the chill, the stillness, the tranquil perfection of it all. How can the world go on being beautiful when one of the things that made it so has disappeared? Anger, white hot and unreasonable, turns your bones to fire. You're on your feet, now, kicking the dust into the air and cursing it. Damn the snow, and damn this place, and-- and _damn_ that _damnable_ door.

Your snowball breaks against it, and you sink to your knees in the snow. All your fury is gone, whisked from your body with the wind, and you kneel there, deflated. Defeated. 

But are you really? The light returns to your eyes as an idea starts to take form. If she can't--  _won't,_ you quickly correct-- come to you, you'll just have to go to her. There has to be a way. After all, it's been done before.

And you're not about to let a door stop you.

You stride up to it and brush the remnants of your anger away with a delicate touch. Then you rap on the surface one more time.

"Knock knock," you say, loud and clear and full of renewed purpose.

_Who's there?_

"Snow." 

_Snow who?_

"Snow way in hell I'm giving up on you, pal."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> * or maybe she's not feeling anything at all...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry it took so long to get this finished, everyone. Things got a bit crazy at home-- but here it is! The end you've all been waiting for. Enjoy, and if you liked it please leave feedback. :3 Thanks!

It’s been three days, and still you’ve made no progress. Even with all of your tricks and abilities, there seems to be no way beyond the door. You haven’t given up yet, but that nagging feeling is back again—the one that haunts you day and night, singing the sweet siren song of apathy. The longer this goes on, the more helpless you feel.

It’s always the same, isn’t it? You just can’t win.

But you can’t give up, either. Something deep within you still clings to hope.

The _rest_ of you aches from all of the effort you’ve expelled; your bones feel bruised and brittle, and your joints don’t glide as smoothly as they used to. Even your soul is tired; each day you come home, magic spent, energy drained, body exhausted. You try not to let it show, avoiding your brother’s questions and distracting him with puns even when you haven’t the heart. But Papyrus has started to worry, and keeping your frustration inside you is harder each day. You’re afraid to lash out, and so you don’t say anything at all; he patiently respects your silence.

“When you’re ready,” he says. Papyrus isn’t stupid; he knows when you’re keeping something from him. He’s always known.  “You know I’m here for you, brother.”

And you do know, you tell him, smiling to beat the band. You try to reassure him and he accepts it with a nod; but the hurt look in his eyes is almost too much to bear.

He doesn’t understand what this means to you. He doesn’t even know where you’ve _been._ You’ve always kept your thoughts locked away, and if you’re perhaps a bit more cryptic than usual... Well. That’s not too extraordinary. After all, you never tell anyone anything.

And that’s why you keep going—because you _did_ tell someone something, once. You opened yourself to a stranger behind a door, and those moments of vulnerability were some of the best of your life. You and Papyrus are brothers, and he is the most important and wonderful thing to ever happen to you; but this person, this woman beyond the door, she was— _is_ \-- a close second.

And now she’s gone.

But gone doesn’t mean dead, you remind yourself. It simply means “not here,” and so you take a leaf from your brother’s book and believe with every ounce of hope you have left. You’re determined to meet her where she is, wherever place that happens to be. And one day, the door will open.

 

It comes when you least expect it. The day is nearly ended, and you lean against the door, exhausted. It’s no use; you’ll never get in this way. You may not ever get in, and that thought saps the last of your strength like the winter wind that steals the breath from your magic monster lungs. You collapse heavily against the door, grateful for the cushion your jacket provides as your spine collides with the stone through its fabric. You’d wince, but you haven’t the energy; the time for caring is long past. You don’t even feel the aches in every joint, anymore, nor the way your ribs rattle with each shuddering, hopeless breath.

It’s time, you decide—time to move on. She’s not coming back, she isn’t there, she may _never_ have been there. Maybe you made her up, in your loneliness and desperation. You try to remember the sound of her voice, soft yet resonant even through the stone and magic that served as the dividing walls of your worlds, but it’s hard. Her laughter is easier to recall, deep and full and genuine. That sound could fuel the stars you’ve always wished you could see, and it makes you believe in her again. You couldn’t dream up a laugh like that.

So you close your eyes, and you force yourself to remember. You think about knock-knock jokes and riddles, of hearty echoing laughter, awkwardly intimate moments of quiet and honesty; of promises made from the depths of your soul. You try to imagine what she looked like. Tall, and graceful, and sort of soft, you decide. You’re not sure what kind of monster she was, but she must have been beautiful. No one with a soul that bright could be otherwise. And it doesn’t matter, anyway, because of that soul. Aside from Papyrus, she was the coolest, purest, good-est person you’d ever met.

You realize you’re thinking in past-tense again, and _that_ makes you realize that you have to know. You can’t walk away from this.

There’s one more card up your sleeve. It’s one you’d rather not play; in another life, an earlier, more exciting timeline, it got you stuck between worlds. That’s what happens when you try to jump somewhere you’ve never seen. It’s painful, and it’s terrifying, and one hard-learned lesson was enough to put you off the idea forever. But you’re out of options, and the frantic desire to _know_ overcomes the fear of literally-agonizing failure.

You take a deep breath to brace yourself; if you screw this up, no amount of preparation can save you, but somehow the breath helps anyway. You close your eyes again, this time to imagine what might be on the other side of the door. You’re hoping it’s a large room, or at least a wide hallway; a cave passage, perhaps? Either way, the surroundings aren’t as important as not getting stuck within them, so you focus your mind on the empty space just on the other side, centered on the door and a bit higher than the ground. (After all, you’d rather aim high and miss than find your feet melted into the floor.) Open space: that’s what you’re aiming for. Open space…

With a familiar lurch that bends your spine and makes your ribs ache, you make the jump. You open your eyes just as you fall to the ground, and you manage not to fall on your face. Instead, you stumble forward a few steps before regaining your balance. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to take in your

You’re definitely not in the forest anymore. The light here is dimmer, unnatural; in fact, you’re not sure where the light is coming from at all. It’s ambient and soft, a gentle violet hue that makes your bones glow. You admire it for a moment, raising a skeleton hand in the light and watching it play across your phalanges. Then realization sinks through your skull, and you can’t help being elated. You did it! You’re on the other side!

You call out a tentative “hello?,” your voice echoing down the path. It’s a long hallway, one that leads further into the ruins, and you can see where it turns a corner in the distance. You’ve never been in the ruins before, and your heart trills at the thought of exploring new places. But exploration for adventure’s sake can wait; you’re here on a mission.

“Knock knock!” You’re grinning as your voice carries down the path.

_Who’s there?_

“Boo.”

_Boo, who?_

“Aww, don’t cry. I’m finally here!”

You laugh at your own stupid joke, and listen to it echo in the ruins for a moment. The answering silence sobers you a bit, and you clear your throat and mutter an apology to the unhearing walls. For some reason, this doesn’t seem the place for knock-knock jokes.

You tug your hood up over your skull, trying not to shiver. Something isn’t right here; at least, it doesn’t _feel_ that way. It’s colder than it should be; or maybe that’s just a draft around the ancient door. You turn to give it a skeptical look before heading down the hallway. At least, you would have if you hadn’t stepped in a large pile of snow.

But there shouldn’t be snow here. The door hasn’t opened; how else could it get in? You check your person, but no—you didn’t bring it with you, either. And this snow isn’t wet; it’s dry, almost chalky, more like dust than—

You jump back in horror, falling over yourself in your desperation to be free of the stuff. Your back slams against the door as you try to crawl away, eyes round in fear and revulsion. This can’t be—she can’t be—God, this isn’t what you wanted! You’ve worked so hard, tried so many times—for this? No. No no no God no this wasn’t fair this wasn’t right she couldn’t be _gone_ —

Maybe it was someone else’s. Monsters fell down all the time, sometimes it was just your time to go… As soon as you’ve thought it, you know it’s not true. Who else would be here at the door? Who else? Who else?

God, this was your fault. If you’d tried harder, you might have saved her. Might have warned her. But you’d been fooled too. Suddenly you’re filled with anger, white hot and tainted with hate like an oil slick on water. Why hadn’t you destroyed that child when you had the chance? If you ever saw that little punk again, you’d tear them to pieces and enjoy _every anguished moment_.

You bury your face in your hands and fight back a sob. This is your worst nightmare come true. How could things have gone so wrong? What path could have possibly led to this Out of all the possibilities in the universe, this was the one the world chose?

Lifting your head, you notice the white flakes clinging to your foot. Your heart leaps into your throat; you brush and scratch at the ash in a panic, but it stubbornly sticks to your damp shoe and your bony fingers aren’t enough to scrape it all away. The harder you try to be rid of it the more your heart races, until you’re scrabbling against the canvas as your chest heaves and your vision starts to blur. You can’t breathe; you have to go. You have to get away from here—get away get away _get away_ —

You barely feel the lurch before you find yourself in the forest again, and with a frantic tug you pull the sneaker from your foot and hurl it at the door, scrambling away from it before it even hits its mark. You trip over your own limbs and hurtle into the snow-- and there you stay, face down, curled up in a ball of bony misery and trying to catch your breath.

“I’m sorry,” you mutter into the snow. Your voice, like the rest of you, is broken. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

And you vow to make no more promises.


	3. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> * all i know is... seeing what comes next... i can't afford not to care anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary quote is absolutely out of context, so sue me.

You come back long after day’s end, pushing the door open with a heavy limb and trudging into the house. Your single shoe tracks snow across the floor, but you don’t care. The house could burn down around you and you wouldn’t even blink. From the couch, your brother starts to protest, but one look at your face and his jaw snaps shut with an audible click. How you must look to him? How evident is the weariness of your soul?

As subtle as a neon sign, apparently, because before you can blink Papyrus leaps across the room, wraps you in his spindly, strong arms and pulls you against him.

“Pap, don’t,” you protest, but you can’t even fake a smile and your limbs are too weak to push him away. “I’m okay, I-- I p-promise—“

That word is what breaks you, and you fall against him with a sob. Your fingers wrap themselves in his cape as he pulls you close, and he doesn’t complain or ask what’s wrong or say a single word. He just lets you cry all the tears you can, lets you unload the grief and hurt and emptiness you’ve been damming up inside.

_When you’re ready._

It’s unspoken, but the message is there loud and clear, radiating from his very soul as he carries you to bed—his bed, not yours-- and crawls in next to you. He tucks the blankets under your chin and curls around you, and you wonder for a moment if he’s trying to protect you from yourself. You could use it, honestly, and you’ve always felt safe around Pap; but how can he shield you from the thoughts that never go away? How can you tell him how worthless you feel, what a failure you are to act when it matters? How do you tell him how angry you are, that you can’t even save one person? That this is all your fault? How do you explain what you’ve lost?

But… you _will_ explain. You’re not sure how, or when, or how many times it will take; you don’t know how often this arc will play out, or how many times you’ll feel so broken you don’t know that you’ll ever feel right again. It doesn’t matter that he’ll forget. It doesn’t, because _you’ll_ remember. And you owe it to her to keep that alive, the memory of who she was, and to share that with the person you love the most— even if that means doing it over and over again. She’d want that. She’d want you to believe. So even though it’s hard, you’ll try. You’ll keep holding on, keep remembering what she left behind: something far more precious than ashes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I couldn't leave it on an angsty note, you get this. I hope you enjoyed it, at the slightly-optimistic ending. One has to hope that even Sans can find that again-- hope.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading, everyone! Sorry it's taken so long to get up. I appreciate your patience and all your feedback! 
> 
> Court out.


End file.
